The Jewish Study Bible

[Difflugia]

The Jewish Study Bible from Oxford University Press is now available as an ebook (since October 1, apparently, but I just noticed today). It's not a bargain by any means, but I've been looking to replace my paper copy for ages. I thought I'd mention it, in case there are other Bible nerds in the same position. Prices are sort of all over the place.

$23.79 Barnes & Noble
$30.59 Amazon
$18.35 Google Play
$30.59 Kobo
$33.99 eBooks.com

A few notes about vendors:

• Google Play is cheapest up front, but Google makes internal changes to their epubs.
• OUP books are couponable at Kobo, but Kobo looks like kepub only (no Blackberry in the "Read This On" list).
• B&N are next up in price, but they're playing games with their DRM.
• eBooks.com sells unmodified epubs with Adobe DRM, but they're the most expensive.

I wanted an epub, so no Amazon. Since Bible epubs tend to be complicated and I don't trust anyone to make changes to it, that ruled out Google and Kobo. I don't like what Barnes & Noble is doing with their DRM, but eBooks.com is $10 more expensive. I tested a few books to make sure that I could still remove B&N DRM, bought it and downloaded it to Calibre immediately.

A few notes about the ebook:

The book and pericope titles are in English and Hebrew. The Hebrew characters don't render correctly in several reader applications, including NOOK for PC, Digital Editions for PC and Mantano for Android. They do appear correctly in Moon+ for Android. If this is an important consideration for you, a DRM-free sample can be downloaded from B&N (using either NOOK for PC or a script; details are in the linked thread above) and tried on your reader of choice.

If you're unfamiliar with The Jewish Study Bible, this is a scholarly work (as one should expect from Oxford University Press) that reflects the consensus of modern biblical scholarship. It is definitely not theologically conservative. Compare these sections about the authorship of Genesis, first a short excerpt from The Jewish Study Bible:

Slowly, with the rise of rationalism, particularly as associated with figures such as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and especially Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632–1677), the view that the Torah was a unified whole, written by Moses, began to be questioned. (For additional information on this development, see “Modern Jewish Interpretation,” pp. 1971–77, and “Modern Study of the Bible,” pp. 2166–77). This culminated in the development of the model of the Documentary Hypothesis in the 19th century, according to which the Torah (or Hexateuch) is comprised of four main sources or documents which were edited or redacted together: J, E, P, and D. Each of these sources or documents is embedded in a (relatively) complete form in the current Torah, and is typified by vocabulary, literary style, and theological perspective.

J and E are so called after the names for God that each of them uses in Genesis: J uses the name “Yahveh” (German “Jahwe,” hence “J”), translated in NJPS as “Lord,” though it is really a personal name whose exact meaning is unknown; E prefers to call the deity “Elohim” (translated “God”), an epithet which also serves as the generic term for God or gods in the Bible. P, which also uses “Elohim” (and other names, such as “Shaddai”), is an abbreviation for the Priestly material, and D refers to the Deuteronomist, primarily in Deuteronomy.

The difference in divine names, however, is not the main criterion used by scholars for suggesting that the Torah is not a unified composition. Much more significant are doublets and contradictions, in both narrative and legal material. For example, it has long been noted that Gen. chs 1–3 twice narrate the creation of the world. People are created first in 1.27—“And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”—and then again in 2.7—“The Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” Furthermore, the second creation account does not simply mirror or repeat the first, but differs from the first in both outline and detail. Gen. 1.1–2.3, the first account, narrates the creation of a highly symmetrical world by a very powerful deity who creates through the word. In this story, for example, man and woman are created together (1.27) after the creation of the land animals (1.25). In contrast, the second story, in 2.4–3.24, suggests that man was created (2.7), then the animals (2.19), and then woman (2.21–22). Its focus is on the creation of humanity, not of the entire physical world, and God anthropomorphically “forms” various beings, rather than creating them through the spoken word. Thus, these are two separate stories, written by two authors, representing different worldviews about the nature of creation, humanity, and God.

then the corresponding discussion from the NIV Study Bible:

During the last three centuries many interpreters have claimed to find in the Pentateuch four underlying sources. The presumed documents, allegedly dating from the tenth to the fifth centuries BC, are called J (for Jahweh/Yahweh, the personal OT name for God), E (for Elohim, a generic name for God), D (for Deuteronomic) and P (for Priestly). Each of these documents is claimed to have its own characteristics and its own theology, which often contradicts that of the other documents. The Pentateuch is thus depicted as a patchwork of stories, poems and laws. However, this view is not supported by conclusive evidence, and intensive archaeological and literary research has tended to undercut many of the arguments used to challenge Mosaic authorship.

Finally, in case it isn't obvious, The Jewish Study Bible doesn't contain the New Testament.

[crich70]

Interesting. The text also shows (whether just Old Testament or both Old and New) the problem of proper translation. The Old Testament is translated from ancient Hebrew whereas the New Testament was written for the most part (if not totally) in a form of Greek so that several different words more often than not are translated to be the same word in English due to the fact that they have similar (but not necessarily identical) meaning. And of course some words are just anglified versions of the original since no English word quite fits as the equivalent in translation.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by crich70

Interesting. The text also shows (whether just Old Testament or both Old and New) the problem of proper translation. The Old Testament is translated from ancient Hebrew whereas the New Testament was written for the most part (if not totally) in a form of Greek so that several different words more often than not are translated to be the same word in English due to the fact that they have similar (but not necessarily identical) meaning. And of course some words are just anglified versions of the original since no English word quite fits as the equivalent in translation.

That's a good point and also makes apparent that I forgot to mention the translation. It's the Jewish Publication Society's "Tanakh" translation. The copyright on the translation is 1999.